I must reserve a ticket for the Canuck comics' rally for freedom

Guy, please assure me that there will be a seat for me, even if it is under the garlic chef's armpit .... (By the way, here's Kathy Five Feet of Fury Shaidle's introduction to Guy Earle.)

Last night, I stayed up late reading Jonah Goldberg’s revealing Liberal Fascism, and I recommend it for summer reading. It's spooky because Goldberg spells out clearly what I only viscerally sensed: Fascism is not about khaki and jackboots; it is about identity politics. He writes,

Today we unreflectively associate fascism with militarism. But it should be remembered that racism was militaristic because militarism was "progressive" at the beginning of the twentieth century. Across the intellectual landscape, technocrats and poets alike saw the military as the best model for organizing and mobilizing society. (p. 106)

Some brands of fascist identity feature khaki and jackboots; others feature hurt feelings and assignments of guilt - the sort of thing that appeals to people who grew up in TherapyWorld.

No wait, they didn't grow up in TherapyWorld. No one ever grows up there. They just grow older and more aggrieved.

I will write more on this later.

Meanwhile, someone wrote to one of my community blogs that he was a Canadian trying to become a US citizen. He had some advice for the rest of us - be nice:

... for Christians living in Canada, it seems that there is this government enforced exercise in being gracious in their speech, which might have some positive benefits. If they have to watch their words under close eye of the government or of complainants who have a tendancy to feel offended, graciousness should be a welcome discipline for some. There is still no law against Galatians 5:22.

And I replied ,

There is a cosmic difference between gracious words flowing from gracious thoughts and the “little police station in the head” that fascist government (the Nanny Monster) implants.

What we are undergoing in Canada does not lead to graciousness; it leads to a resentful, servile, dependent, and stupid population punctuated here and there by heroes who are quickly disowned by their fellows and forgotten.

For example, even though white, Christian Protestant males have been overwhelmingly more likely than anyone else to be Nanny’s victims, they have been as silent as the grave, too frightened to defend each other.

Right now, it has been mostly Catholic, Jewish, and Muslim journalists, (and disproportionately women) who are doing the serious fighting - and not because they are safer (quite the opposite, they have been singled out for exemplary attacks as a result).

So many people who might surprise you just sit around, passively waiting for the number for their government-funded ‘otomy to come up in the computer. If they’re religious, they claim that, after all, some Yankee evangelist predicted that the End Times would be like this and yada yada yada.

Trying to explain the problem to a friend, I said, “The Nanny Monster likes to play tennis without a net. Some people here have a different problem - all the balls are locked in the storage shed and they don’t know where the key is.”

Anyway, good luck with sorting out the citizenship thing. And please, please do your new country a favour by opposing your local Nanny Monster while she is still easily controllable.

Think she doesn’t exist? Visit your local U campus where, chances are, she is happily hatching her eggs.

Meanwhile, the Fire. Them. All. theme seems to be picking up a head of steam.

Why would Brazilians want to hear from a chemist who thinks there is design in nature?

A friend from Brazil has been writing to tell me that the Brazilian Association for the Advancement of Science cancelled a lecture by chemist Marcos N Eberlin, Prof Dr Universidade Estadual de Campinas - UNICAMP (State University of Campinas) Instituto de Química (Institute of Chemistry) when they discovered that he might be talking about the design of our universe. Now Eberlin writes to say,

I sent the organizers the title of my talk and a resume. They accept it and added the talk to the scientific program. For two weeks my talk was advertized in the SBPC 2008 reunion website (see program enclosed) for Tuesday 15 10:30h (Terça Feira = Tuesday).

Yesterday I got an email for the organization saying simply and rudely that my talk had been cancelled! No explanations, no excuses… I then asked for a explanation, and they said ID is religion in the board of directors SBPC opinion and that is why they cancelled my talk. I let them know how erroneous they are and that ID is Science in its essence and that people would know no intelligence is allowed also at the SBPC meetings but as usual they were inflexible.
So that is the story. I think we should let everybody knows how scientific organizations are acting … people have the right to know.

I have a few other talks about ID in public universities here in Brazil scheduled for the 2nd semester, lets see if they will act to cancel these talks also… I hope not.

Dr. Eberlin, don't be surprised if other talks are suddenly cancelled. Always remember that your local adminbots need the idea that there is no design in nature - it provides the perfect excuse for their frightened stampede round the file cabinets.

They do not show intelligence because - intelligence does not exist anyway!

I hope you get a chance to give your lecture in Canada. Some here would like to hear it.

Enron and Darwinism: A perfect fit?

I've sometimes said that Darwinism is the Enron of biology, but I hadn't realized that the Enron guys themselves were actually Darwin freaks. A friend tells me, re the Enron doc, The Smartest Guys in the Room,

Of interest to me was the unapologetically explicit philosophy of Darwinism which was prevalent at Enron from top management to commodity traders.

Hmmm. Every year, in the Freelance Survival 101 course that I teach at Write! Canada, I spend a certain amount of the available time disabusing students of the view that Darwinian competition is the best way to understand how business works.

The business environment with which I am familiar - and in which I have managed to thrive as a freelance writer for nearly four decades - is best seen as an ecology, not a Darwinian jungle.

The secret of thriving in an ecology is to know how the system works, your place in it, and the safe limits for any activity.

Example: I am only occasionally in direct competition with other writers. Most of the time, they have the same interests as I do, and the whole publishing industry has certain interests in relation to other industries and to government - and to the publishing industries and governments in other English-speaking countries. So we all work together most of the time.

Lone Darwinians are usually pole-axed.

And the Enrons didn't know that? Oops, I am admitting that Darwinism is nonsense. It isn't safe for you to hear me. Don't listen to me if your job requires you to believe that Darwinism is the best idea anyone ever had, as American philosopher Daniel Dennett puts it.

Here is an interview that attempts to rewrite Darwin, to rescue him:

METRO: You stressed that Skilling's misreading of Richard Dawkins' book The Selfish Gene changed him: Skilling got his ideas from it, in the same way the robber barons of the Gilded Age misread Darwin.

GIBNEY: And a close reading of Adam Smith shows it's not a "What, me worry?" world. Yes, Skilling misread that book to believe that if everyone is as selfish as possible, the best possible social outcome will emerge. There's a lot in Darwin about cooperation as a viable genetic strategy.

METRO: The stuff anyone who goes on a rainforest tour learns, about symbiosis and interlocking systems. It's all just beyond the ken of these guys.

Actually, Darwin agreed with Herbert Spencer that Darwinism was about "survival of the fittest."*

Agree? Disagree? If you need to rewrite Darwin to make him fit YOUR philosophy, why do you? What's going on in your head at this point? Why don't you just junk all that crap, and admit that you live in a designed universe. And so?

*You will, of course, hear modern hagiographers of Darwin attempting to soften or dismiss all this, to accommodate Darwinism to the nanny state. They need Darwin so badly, he can't just wrong, so he needs to be rewritten so that he is right.

Trying to understand intelligent design? I see a hatchet in your future ...

Some Brit friends have written to me to protest Stephen Poole's hatchet job review of American-born Warwick U sociologist Steve Fuller's recent book Dissent Over Descent: Intelligent Design's Challenge to Darwinism. For example,

The book is an epoch-hopping parade of straw men, incompetent reasoning and outright gibberish, as when evolution is argued to share with astrology a commitment to "action at a distance", except that the distance is in time rather than space. It's intellectual quackery like this that gives philosophy of science a bad name.

One friend complains,

Basically we doubt that Stephen Poole, the reviewer, has ever read the book. He has abused his readers. We’ve written to The Guardian to say so.

Why must Brits be surprised about what isn't surprising, and doesn't even need explaining?

Look, any sound idealogue can write a hatchet job on a book, merely on hearing of its existence. And right now, anti-ID rubbish flows through every legacy media hack's word processor. Poole may well have flipped through the book or even scanned every character, but so?

It takes considerable effort to stop the flow and ask a couple of simple questions:

1. Do I think that the universe shows no evidence whatever of intelligent design?

2. Have I ever tested this assumption?

3. Do I think that mind can arise from mud like fairies from toadstools? And, ... oh, wait ! ... ?

If Poole did not in fact make that effort, he does not differ from a large crowd. But let's assume he did. I know of legacy journalists for whom putting their name on a hatchet job would be a mere act of faith, a conventional duty.

A copy of Fuller's book is on its way to me, and I will say no more until I read it.

Except this: The legacy media "story of the century" is that science proves we are robots, selfish genes, or monkeys. Any story that does not fit that template must eventually be either attacked or relegated to the "cute religion" desk, along with the fetching kittens and the fragile rainforest flowers. Cute venomous snakes and weeds, however, remain "science."

I plan to interview Fuller.

Meanwhile, buy the guy's book, on your own, will you, so no one can prove I am responsible for a sudden spike in popularity.

Other Post-Darwinist articles on Steve Fuller:

"British sociologist charges: Hostility to intelligent design is bigotry, not science"

"Giving Darwin a decent burial

Darwin: Science mags pipe up the hype, and no, you are NOT just imagining that uproar behind the curtains ...

British physicist David Tyler observes, in an article about a recent early flatfish find:

The most noticeable feature of the research concerns the evolutionary hype that has emerged from the journal Nature and from the science media. We are not witnessing an impartial evaluation of the data, but a construction of an argument to "lay to rest" criticisms of Darwinism and evolutionary transformation.

For example,

Matt Friedman, the author of the research paper, says that the fossils are important because "they help to settle a long-standing evolutionary debate and shed light on the mode and tempo of evolutionary change". Apparently, finding one intermediate stage dated at 47 million years is sufficient to say that the tempo was "gradual" and that it occurred over "over thousands to millions of years". We have no earlier fossils without asymmetry, and fully asymmetric flatfish appear in the fossil record at the same time. At very least, we can say that these data do not justify the word "gradual"!

One outcome of the huge investment in saving Darwinism is that the really interesting questions are not even pursued. The flatfish is best known for gradually moving both eyes to the same side of its head as it grows:

The morphological changes are developmental: they occur in every flatfish living today. These changes do not involve any genetic change - the genome is the same before and after the development of asymmetry. The important difference is that the new fossils are mature, not young. But surely the first explanatory options to be explored relate to developmental mechanisms. Are there environmental factors leading to the retarded development of these fish? Or are there epigenetic influences which mean that normal development was impaired, and these animals represent stunted growth? Curiously, there is no exploration of these options in the research paper or in the science media.

Anyone familiar with the underlying politics will immediately recognize the attempted swipe in the pop science media against American paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould's notion that large changes might occur quite suddenly.

The Darwinists have never been comfortable with this, because they need a complete series of intermediate steps - every single one of which confers a "survival of the fittest" advantage in order to prove that their "greatest idea anyone ever had"* is even mildly plausible.

And they will settle for very little evidence and very much hype. I have noted the same thing as Tyler in recent years:

The need of legacy media to “refute” intelligent design is taking
precedence over normal story values. For example, reviewer Sara Lippincott in the Los Angeles Times, looking at When Science Goes Wrong by Simon LeVay says that the book, “despite its provocative title, will not give particular comfort to proponents of intelligent design.” (If their view was relevant to the story, she doesn't say how. It sounds more like she had to just get that in, to remind herself of what she believes).

Similarly, Anne Minard writes in National Geographic News (July 9, 2008), “The discovery of a missing link in the evolution of bizarre flatfishes-each of which has both eyes on the same side of its head could give intelligent design advocates a sinking feeling.” I know for a fact that it didn’t give the key ID guys that I keep track of a sinking feeling.

But Minard herself needs to believe that it does give them a sinking feeling. More to the point, her job is to communicate that idea to her faithful and grateful Geographics. Yet even now, the Altenberg 16 meet to decide how they can save their exploded idea, reminding me of Glasnost.

*Philosopher Daniel Dennett's description of Darwinism.

(Note: The image is from Project Gutenberg.)

The Altenberg 16 - burying Darwin while he is still hot?

Is Susan Mazur writing a book that exposes the Darwin industry instead of protecting it?

The title is "Altenberg 16: An Exposé Of The Evolution Industry
Sunday, 6 July 2008, 12:32 pm
Article: Suzan Mazur "

Forward

Introduction

Chronology

Evolution Tribes

1 The Altenberg 16

2 Altenberg! The Woodstock of Evolution?

3 Jerry Fodor and Stan Salthe Open the Evo Box

4 Theory of Form to Center Stage

5 The Two Stus

[ and more ... ]

Susan, you mean, no more of the "dancing with the biologists" on Galapagos rubbish (and, person who wrote that silliness, you know who you are ... ) A real accounting at last?

By the way, the intro to a book is the "Foreword", not "Forward". Easy to correct.

I will read and report shortly.

Okay, (2:04 pm EST) starting to get some answers now: A long-time observer who knows several of the Alt. 16, says,

The anecdote about Mary Leakey, with which Mazur opens her e-book, is telling. Leakey says that she re-buried hominid fossils so that their "discovery" could be covered by a film crew. As I see it, Mazur places this story as a epigraph to her coverage of the Alt 16, and related issues, to indicate her skepticism of the neo-D enterprise: a science hopelessly corrupted by ideology and quasi-religious motivations, and shot through with cowardice and intimidation of dissent.

Mazur's skepticism is long-standing (note the date of the Leakey interview: 1980). That means she got bit with the bug of doubt about neo-D nearly 30 years ago, and has had plenty of time to observe the mischief since then. Now she's on a roll.

I don't think she wants to take the Alt 16 to the cleaners, so much as she wants a lot more openness and candor about neo-D in public discussions. Moreover she sees the stifling orthodoxy, even to the extent that she publishes her correspondence with magazine editors turning down her article proposals.

Fascinating lady. I look forward to meeting her.

But why did Mazur even make any article proposals? Don't legacy media editors have to front Darwin as part of making a living?

Here are some of the Comments at Telic Thoughts in response to this intro by Guts:

It's not Yasgur's Farm, but what happens at the Konrad Lorenz Institute in Altenberg, Austria this July promises to be far more transforming for the world than Woodstock. What it amounts to is a gathering of 16 biologists and philosophers of rock star stature – let's call them "the Altenberg 16" – who recognize that the theory of evolution which most practicing biologists accept and which is taught in classrooms today, is inadequate in explaining our existence. It's pre the discovery of DNA, lacks a theory for body form and does not accomodate "other" new phenomena. So the theory Charles Darwin gave us, which was dusted off and repackaged 70 years ago, seems about to be reborn as the "Extended Evolutionary Synthesis".

A lot of the ensuing chatter is just people talking to themselves, but some interesting discussion is developing:

Well, it’s very unfortunate that you bought into this. There are very few people in evolutionary biology who take Pigliucci seriously, and Fodor, Pivar, et al. are literally unknowns, providing no evidence that they’ve read a single bit of the mainstream evolutionary biology literature.

[ ... ]

I have little confidence in a “new synthesis” emerging from this motley crew of B-list science celebrities, and their mishmash of old ideas (“self-organization,” “emergence,” “edge of chaos,” and all that), and current professional rivalries and personal animosities. These are all “old school” biologists and philosophers.

And so forth.

Essentially, old school or new school, the Darwinists first need to decide what exactly Darwinism is. Is it simply a theory about whether species originate via survival of the fittest? That's what Darwin (and Wallace) proposed. Or is it also Lee Smolin's cosmic Darwinism, the Big Bazooms theory of evolution beloved of Psychology Today, and gangs of deceitful memes spreading religion as a virus of the mind?

If it is the first (a theory of the origin of species), it may well be true in some cases. But the evidence for Darwinism as a large, general cause of the origin of species has never been very good. When challenged, Darwinists typically point to trivial or questionable examples, then demand loyalty to their bigger idea as proof of support for "science" generally.

Then, of course, in marches a kazoo band harping on cosmic Darwinism, the Big Bazooms theory, and the gangs of deceitful religion memes (or viruses).

The fact that Darwinists have been able to get away with this nonsense for so long is principally due to the popularity at universities of the bigger idea that Darwinism supposedly underwrites - materialist atheism. Darwinism is the creation story of materialist atheism, if not of any particular species in nature. Most of the "skeptic rants' you hear in Darwinism's defence are recitations of the creed.

In short, I think Darwinism would be a viable idea in science if Darwinists could bring themselves to fire the kazoo band, but I bet they can't. We'll see.

Oh, and here's some damage control from Olivia Judson in the New York Times, "Let's get rid of Darwinism" because it's all much broader than that:

I’d like to abolish the insidious terms Darwinism, Darwinist and Darwinian. They suggest a false narrowness to the field of modern evolutionary biology, as though it was the brainchild of a single person 150 years ago, rather than a vast, complex and evolving subject to which many other great figures have contributed. (The science would be in a sorry state if one man 150 years ago had, in fact, discovered everything there was to say.) Obsessively focusing on Darwin, perpetually asking whether he was right about this or that, implies that the discovery of something he didn’t think of or know about somehow undermines or threatens the whole enterprise of evolutionary biology today.

But Judson, what ISN'T Darwinism?

The best way to accomplish your proposed goal would be by beginning there. But somehow I don't think you want to go there.

Yet all too often, evolution — insofar as it is taught in biology classes at all — is taught as the story of Charles Darwin. Then the pages are turned, and everyone settles down to learn how the heart works, or how plants make energy from sunshine, or some other detail. The evolutionary concepts that unify biology, that allow us to frame questions and investigate the glorious diversity of life — these are ignored.

Do these evolutionary concepts include or exclude cosmic Darwinism, the Big Bazooms theory of evolution, and the gangs of deceitful religion memes (or viruses). I am beginning to suspect that the Birkenstock of Evolution (the Altenberg Conference) will break up without defining anything like that, which means it will have been a pleasant Alpine holiday.

July 16 6:17 pm EST, another friend writes,

I have not had time to read Mazur's stuff in detail. It seems that she has experienced the stonewalling encountered by anyone who questions Neo-Darwinism, but it also seems she is trying to push the self-organization school of thought, which tends to be either materialistic or pantheistic (ala Stuart Kaufman) in approach. Self-organizationalists acknowledge the incompleteness of the Darwinian explanation, but will not concede the necessity of an intelligent agent who guided the origin and development of life.

As to her assessment of the A-16s- she is angry because they promised her access, then denied it after her first article caused an uproar. I am not sure she has engaged the arguments for herself yet. I think she didn't realize how radioactive this particular subject is, but she is now beginning to find out.

Radioactive? yes. Susan should contact me if she wants to know whether she has a future as a journalist. Yes, if she adopts as her motto, "If, after investigation, it sounds unbelievable, ... hey, don't believe it." Otherwise, no. But there is always a government job somewhere.

Another friends, James Barham, comments,

On the whole, I thought it was splendid. ... Something like Mazur's article is long overdue. I am so happy that finally a few of the people who question neo-Darwinism from a secular perspective are beginning to get a real hearing in the media. It's high time!

There are many, many other folks that she might have interviewed, as well, but I am grateful that she at least gave Kauffman, Newman, and Lima-de-Faria a hearing (also, I was delighted to learn that Piattelli-Palmarini seems to have come around to a self-organization perspective, which I was not aware of). Now, if she will only interview West-Eberhard, Jablonka, Margulis, Ho, Goodwin, Yates, Reid, and a dozen others ...

Look, James, I just paid a library fine for a bunch of overdue pop sci mags that were not worth checking out even for free because they were brimful of the sci trash that Mazur is trying to expose (and thus were expensively forgettable clutter).

I just hope that girl got good biz sense ...

Casey Luskin at Discovery Institute notes,

Pigliucci claims there's "no crisis" here, but Kevin Padian is hanging up on people and Eugenie Scott claims people will confuse the arguments of conference-attendees with intelligent design.

What is most interesting here is not just Pigliucci's attempt at damage control, but the NCSE's knee-jerk reaction against anything that isn't neo-Darwinian. It seems that the NCSE was indeed quite worried that this conference will do damage to neo-Darwinism. At the very least, this exchange exposes the NCSE's intolerant attitude towards non-Darwinian thoughts, even when the doubters don't support ID. Indeed, Mazur's reports reveal that various scientists she has interviewed at the conference have fundamental doubts about neo-Darwinism, but they are eschewed by the scientific community.

Well yes, because they have to yap Darwinyap to get research funding. Try getting research funding without doing that ... try holding your hat out on the street.

Intellectual freedom in Canada: Comedy and libel - a quick update

About next Saturday's comedy show, Mark Steyn writes,

Denyse O'Leary's misgivings about the event may well be borne out, but, if I weren't going to be several thousand miles away, I'd certainly be there myself - and I urge all freespeechers in the neighborhood to attend: Be there even if you're square. No doubt many of the participants were hitherto entirely relaxed by the thought police cracking down on Swift Current White Supremacists and the First Church of Christ the Same-Sex-Marriage Disparager. But the reality is that any truly free society will have its share of anti-Semites and homophobic pastors and right-wing blowhards and left-wing pottymouth comics, and, if you give the government license to squash the liberties of selected citizens, you soon find they're selecting all kinds of other folk. So, if you're in Toronto this Saturday, do check out Guy Earle and co.

Now, please let me clarify: I sincerely hope my misgivings are misguided. That is, the comics should aim principally at real threats, not convenient joke topics.

In our society today, the would-be neo-Nazi in the basement apartment (Aryan Storm Eagle on an obscure Internet site but in real life an unemployable schmuck whose landlady bullies him when he forgets which day of the week he is allowed to use the ironing board) - that guy is not a threat except to himself.

However, the social worker with a string of degrees and a self-imposed mission to wipe out hurt feelings everywhere IS a threat. Many in our society are bafflegabbed by her jargon, feel more secure when she is running their lives, and don't think that growing up is all that great an idea anyway.

For what it is worth, I have always thought that Aldous Huxley's Brave New World was a better dystopian picture of our society than Orwell's 1984. Huxley got the most important thing right - infantilizing people is far more effective than terror for gaining control.

In my view, we need to aim at Nanny Monster, not at Aryan Storm Schmuck.

See also: Intellectual freedom in Canada: The first order of business is comedy!

Meanwhile, Franklin Carter of the Book and Periodical Council kindly writes to add:

Incidentally, Brian MacLeod Rogers has organized a coalition of interested parties to support the newly minted PIRJ defence against libel charges in Ontario.

PIRJ stands for "public interest responsible journalism." The Ontario Court of Appeal created this defence late last year while reviewing Cusson v. Quan, a newspaper libel case.

In late June, the Governing Board of the Book and Periodical Council voted to join Rogers's coalition and defend PIRJ.

In the not-too-distant future, the Supreme Court of Canada will decide whether PIRJ remains on the lawbooks as a valid defence against libel charges.

So you might want to watch for news about Cusson v. Quan and the PIRJ defence.

Franklin

Be sure I shall, Franklin. People who are used to praise tend to think that media should be their private public relations firms. Hurt feelings abound when they don't get what they want, so they sue. Good luck to the PBC.

Intellectual freedom in Canada: First order of business is comedy!

Yes, absolutely, the first order of business is definitely comedy, on Saturday night, July 19, celebrating 40 years of stand up comedy "an event that embodies our right to free speech (while we still have it)"

Details: Tickets $20 at Comedy Bar, 945B Bloor St. West, show starts 9:00 pm July 19, all proceeds to Guy Earle's defense. Earle is the comic charged by the BC human rights tribunal because some hecklers were offended by his response after they dissed him.

Comics: Register online: http://www.guyearle.ca/ One minute each, only 40 spots available. 60 seconds to shoot your mouth off.

Mark Steyn, himself a funnyman in prose, talks about Earle on the Hugh Hewitt show here:

MS: ... these hack bureaucrats simply don’t get it, and they want to expand their powers. The British Columbia judges, the ones in my case, have now moved on to prosecuting this fellow called Guy Earle, who is a stand-up comedian. And basically, two people who’d been barracking him during the show complained that he’d been rude to them, as comics often are. You have to, if you’re doing live stand-up, you have to be able to put down hecklers. Unfortunately, in his case, the hecklers were two lesbians, and they’ve now complained (laughing)…

[ ... ]

I think jokes are one of the absolutely critical things that distinguish free societies from unfree societies. I love that line of the Ayatollah Khomeini’s – “There are no jokes in Islam.” He says, you know, if you think you’re down here to have fun, have a laugh, have a good time, have a big giggle, a chuckle, split your sides, forget it. There are no jokes in Islam.

The ayatollah had obviously never met some of my Muslim friends who are well acquainted with a good joke. Just as well on both sides I am sure.

Meanwhile, civil rights lawyer Ezra Levant, has suggested to a US Congress committee that they put Canada on a rights abuse watch list:

So what can Americans do?

1. The first thing you can do is what you always do: continue to monitor the erosion of freedom around the world, including through Congressional committees like this one. Publish annual reports shaming foreign countries for their abuses of freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Put Canada on that list, to let our government know what they’re doing isn’t acceptable.

2. And rededicate yourselves to your First Amendment. Understand that the erosion of freedom doesn’t always happen with a bang – it can happen with a whimper. And that, when it comes to free speech, it’s usually unpopular people who are censored first. But if they can go for a neo-Nazi yesterday, it’s Geno’s Steak House today, and then a Christian pastor or a news magazine tomorrow.

I think that might be a good idea. A few independent American news outlets might cover the ongoing mulching of civil rights here. The others will cover the latest fashions in belly rings.

Friend Franklin Carter of the Book and Periodical Council of Canada also calls my attention to an important clarification of our libel laws. In "The right to be 'wrong-headed'," media lawyer Brian MacLeod Rogers of Toronto explains,

The Supreme Court of Canada's decision in WIC Radio Ltd. v. Simpson (2008 SCC 40) clarifies and strengthens a defence that had fallen into murky depths and had become too unreliable to be counted on when most needed. Nothing can be more important in a democracy than to have citizens feel that they can speak freely and openly about their views – however wrong-headed those views may seem to others.

In their ruling, all nine judges said

that "public controversy can be a rough trade and the law needs to accommodate its requirements." An "overly solicitous regard for personal reputation," the court added, should not be permitted "to 'chill' freewheeling debate on matters of public interest."

But do let's remember that, for those of us lucky enough to live in or near Toronto, the first order of business is comedy, comedy, comedy Saturday night. I am buying my ticket tomorrow.

Please note: This is late nite comedy. Don't bring Aunt Censoria. Get her to babysit Bowser the Schnauzer.

We come to bury Darwin, not to praise him?

Susan Mazur, who covered the Altenberg 16 rethink of evolution, is posting an e-book about what she is learning - and it ain't pretty. More later.

I start to get answers here. 2:35 pm EST July 15, 2008

Just up at The Mindful Hack

Neuroscience: Meditation really can change the brain

My experiences point to truth but yours are classic examples of brain rot? (Charlie Brown's sister Lucy's theory of psychiatry, but not a cartoon*)

Jeff Schwartz lectures in Ireland on changing the troubled brain by changing the mind

Neuroscience: First detailed map of the Grand Central Station of the brain

Can languages be treated as if words were genes?

The Mindful Hack is news and views on the science of our brains. It supports the book The Spiritual Brain, by Mario Beauregard and Denyse O'Leary.

*A reader helpfully advises me of an error:

In Charles Schulz' popular cartoon strip Peanuts, Charlie Brown and Lucy are not brother and sister, but unrelated.

Charlie Brown's sister is Sally Brown, and Lucy van Pelt has two younger brothers, Linus and Rerun.

Ah yes, ... being a bossy older sister myself, I had merely assumed that she was one of the sorority.

Trees: When the truth is dug up, theories are sometimes uprooted

In "The Life of Trees: Their "most simple and beautiful oneness" in Books & Culture, Alan Jacobs writes about trees, reminding us of how little we really know about the life forms that surround us:

But perhaps the most interesting fact to be gleaned from these books—and from Richard Preston's The Wild Trees—is this: much of our knowledge about trees is of recent vintage, and there is still a great deal about these creatures that we do not know. Rackham points out that two great storms that swept across Britain in 1987 and 1990 and uprooted thousands of old trees created surprise and consternation in many botanists: all along they had been describing the long taproots that anchored such trees deep in the ground, but the storms revealed that the taproots didn't exist. Even the largest trees can have roots just a couple of feet deep: they extend horizontally vast distances, but the taproots that saplings (especially oaks) send down are soon supplanted. Preston describes the work of Steve Sillett, of Humboldt State University in California, and a small group of other scientists who in the past fifteen years have discovered what really goes on in the canopies of our tallest trees—something which earlier botanists had tried, with limited success, to explore by floating above the forests in balloons. Sillett and company simply climb the trees, risking life and limb every time they do it, and in the process are discovering the phenomenally complex ecosystem flourishing in those heights. Preston, who became a climber himself and joined Sillett on some of his expeditions, found in the crowns of some Eastern trees flying squirrels so unfamiliar with human beings that they allowed him to scratch their heads, and life two hundred feet farther up, in those California redwoods, is even stranger. As one scientist vividly remarked, atop some of the tallest redwoods, with their dense and interlocking multiple crowns, you could put showshoes on and throw a Frisbee around. O brave new world indeed.

And so much of what we know is wrong:

Conservationists," says Rackham, "have a record of trying to play God and rectifying God's mistakes as well as humanity's. Often they make woods fit a predetermined theory (which theory depends on how long ago they were at college) rather than listening to the woods and discovering what each wood has to contribute to conservation as a whole." It's now well-understood that the most catastrophic of these attempt at God-playing was the practice—very common throughout the 20th century, especially in North America and in Brazil, and not yet everywhere rejected—of trying to eradicate forest fires. This overzealousness deprives woodland ecosystems of the vital benefits of occasional burning, and, worse, insures that when fires do start they find so much combustible material that they become superfires, with dire consequences for forests and people alike.

Essentially, if all mature trees are protected from destruction, there will be no habitat for the many life forms that depend on new growth and mid-life forests, to say nothing of clearings. A sound ecology incorporates all stages of life, including rotting logs. Jacobs also notes,

It's interesting to see that people who love trees and know them intimately, as opposed to those who have merely general instincts for conservation, tend not to erect ideological barriers between the human world and "Nature." Rackham's deeply committed but pragmatic and nonideological approach credits woodlands with a remarkable ability to manage themselves, and sees a great deal of wisdom in many of our ancient practices of woodcraft—practices formulated when we couldn't dominate our environment and so had to learn to be stewards of it.

It's a lovely essay; it communicates a love for trees while acknowledging the short-sightedness of the sort of urban environmentalism, where the busybody has, alas, picked "nature" as his target.

I had a run-in with just such folk a decade ago when the maple tree in my front yard was struck by lightning. A huge branch blocked the street for hours. Because it was an old tree, planted too close to the sidewalk and now quite disfigured, the city condemned and removed it. Well! To hear some people, you would think we had murdered the legendary Spirit of the Trees! In fact, a fine young tree now stands in its place, and life goes on, somewhat closer to the ground, -at least for now.

(Note: The image is from Free Fotos.)

Today at Colliding Universes

Political correctness stumbles on science: "Black hole" to be a banned word now?

Water? On the moon? And what else?

Earth to Mercury: We love you, don't quit. Read the note, smell the flowers .... please forgive us

Outlaw journalist David Warren disparages Extraterrestrials- and WHERE, I ask you, is the Canadian Human Rights Commission?

Note: Colliding Universes is my blog on what we are learning about the universe and what it means, and how it affects our culture. I hope it will lead to be a book, of which a physicist will be the main author.

Killer insects and intelligent design

Norbert Smith, who was quoted here earlier about bison (which attracted the attention of a number of publicly funded Canadian Darwinbots), also writes to introduce me to a wasp called the cicada killer:

Growing up poor in western Oklahoma I did not have a lot of toys and enjoyed watching cicada killers. This is our largest North American wasp and they are amazing to watch. They capture a cicada several times larger them themselves and carefully sting the nerve ganglia that control the wings of the "locust" first. Next, one by one, they paralyze the ganglia that control each of the insect’s legs. The process often takes several minutes. Once the cicada is totally disabled they drag it up the nearest tree or fence post and fly toward their already prepared burrow. The prey is much to large for them to sustain flight and upon hitting the ground they again climb up any nearby structure and repeat this process until finally they have carried the cicada to its burrow. They then bury it and deposit a single egg. The larva carefully eats around the vital organs and finally eats the remainder of the prey and pupates. For this to have evolved by mutational error has always seemed impossible to this simple minded farm boy.

Well, of course it didn’t evolve by mutational error (= it just so happened) or by Darwinian evolution (= each and every step secured a selection advantage). From a human perspective, insects eating each other is all pretty nasty (think of the wings, for example).

But do we know that anyone except us actually cares? I got into quite a discussion with my e-mail friends on that very topic, and replied,

One thing that has always troubled me about the “evil in nature” schtick (and it so often does seem like a schtick) is the idea that the human perspective rules even though we don’t know that the life forms involved have any similar perspective.

I once saw a photo in National Geographic of praying mantises mating. The female had chewed off the male’s head. Apparently, he didn’t react to this insult, and simply continued mating. Both will die anyway soon after mating, but neither knows it. That’s just how insect life is.

Should God have given insects three score years and ten? Minds like human beings? Would the world be a better or worse place if he had?

Do insects suffer? So much of the kvetching I hear about insects (including Darwin’s) strikes me as a convenient confusion between aesthetics and morality.

Look, if I wanted a way to adjust the population of caterpillars and cicadas to prevent catastrophic vegetation loss in those years that favour insects, I would recycle the caterpillars through another insect and then through an animal life form - so as to keep the biota as varied as possible - rather than just giving the caterpillars a disease and turning them into bio compost.

So I might work out a system that does pretty much what Norbert describes. It’s quiet and convenient. The insect that is looking for a caterpillar does all the work with no further interventions needed.

If someone complains that it isn’t “nice”, I will offer them a 70-year lifespan insect, capable of a human level of thought, that breeds like flies - and has human rights in Spain!

Then I would ship him and the bug to Spain ...

THEN I would say, “Shuddup already and for good, Buster, or I am sending along its mate by a fast courier! And then welcome to the Garden of Breedin’ ”

Basically, I entirely agree that there IS a genuine moral question - around the suffering of animals that have a unitary consciousness. I mean animals that can feel pain as a locus of consciousness. Dogs, cats, horses, and apes are certainly animals of that type.

However, the caterpillar who munches along just as contentedly as he is himself munched is not a subject of such suffering and should not detain those who consider the question of suffering. Saint Charles Darwin was simply wrong about that.

(Note: The image is from Texas A & M Extension. Yeah extension! I love extension courses! Courses for the rest of us.)

Intellectual freedom in Canada: Charged comedian Guy Earle kindly writes to say,

In response to this post, hoping that the comedians at the laugh-in against the "human rights" commissions have the courage to be funny, Guy writes

I defend my comedy from the stage. If people think I'm unfunny, shouldn't they see me perform before they pass judgement

I have been part of and seen HUNDREDS of amazing shows form coast to coast where REAL social commentary is being traded like precious stones. I haven't seen more ignorant hatred and unqualified statements than the ones that come from my detractors! they don't even know me or have seen me!

Losers, the whole whack of 'em

They don't know the first thing about comedy and should go f themselves!

But that's just me

Guy, for once it isn't just you. Lots of people are sick of the nanny monsters. Canadians are converging on that!

- breaking breaking breaking breaking breaking breaking -

Syed Soharwardy, complainant against Ezra Levant, has told Pete Vere of Soo Today (July 11, 2008):

Response to recent human rights decisions

by Syed Soharwardy

When I initiated my complaint against Mr. Levant, I saw human rights commissions as a non-violent means of resolving differences among Canadians.

I was not aware of the controversies between the commissions and Canada's faith communities. I am thinking specifically of my friend Fred Henry, the Roman Catholic bishop of Calgary.

Upon learning about the difficulties he and other faith communities have encountered with the commissions, I withdrew my complaint against Mr. Levant.

Read more here. Good stuff.

We need far more Canadians like Rev. Soyarwardy, wo see the light, and far fewer like the population of our “human rights” commissions.

The latter should be looking for useful jobs soon, and it won't be my fault if they are not.

- breaking breaking breaking breaking breaking breaking -

(Resume regularly scheduled news ... )

And in a followup note, Guy adds:

You gotta love people who criticize something they know nothing about. I think that has got to be my favorite ignorant thing.

I ain't no Carrottop. I do my blogging from the stage in real life.

In 3-D reality I express my opinions and I fight for a country that allows me to do it. I invite naysayers and skeptics but please be informed in your slander.

Come to my show, let me prove to you how unfunny I am. And while you are counting your bullets, waiting for me to get on the stage and be lame, take a look around the crowd and the performers... see a love of freedom that can only be felt in a Comedy Club (which doesn't exist in anywhere but the free world), feel proud that we can all be together despite our diversity and differences of opinions... If you feel it for one heartbeat, I have done my job.

Guy, in my view, you are doing a great job, making comedy relevant to our real problems in Canada. I look forward to your show.

All I ask of all the comics is, be both funny and relevant. Guy obviously is - otherwise he would not have been charged - now let's see what the rest of them do ...

By the way, I myself will sooner go to jail than become a snack for the nanny monsters. I am not asking you or anybody to do something I wouldn't do myself.

(Note: The image is from Dave Thomas's Instant Cast.)

Also: Blazing Cat Fur writes to say:

CHRC [The Canadian Human Rights Commission] is looking for tickets

kinda scary they visit so frequently they come straight to my blog now

VISITOR ANALYSIS
Referring Link
http://blazingcatfur.blogspot.com/2008/07/comics-rally-for-freedom-lets-laugh.html
Host Name
ns.ccdp-chrc.ca
IP Address
198.103.143.130 CHRC [Edit Label]
Country
Canada
Region
Ontario
City
Ottawa
ISP
Gtis

Well, they can bloody PAY for 'em. Guy, make sure they do, and be sure to ANNOUNCE which government sneaks and snitches are there and where they are seated.

Remember, a fundamental rule in North America has been "No soldiers shall be quartered upon the people." Let alone snitches!

Intellectual freedom in Canada: Friends fear the comics won't dare be funny in ways that matter

Friends have warned me not to expect too much from Canada's comics' rally for freedom next Saturday night (in connection with late nite comic Guy Earle being charged by the BC Human Rights Tribunal because persons who heckled him claim to be "offended" by his response):

Key update:

Intellectual freedom in Canada: Charged comedian Guy Earle defends comics - but CHRC is watching him ...

One said, "Late nite comedy is nothing but oral sex jokes!

What? In a country with our politicians and bureaucrats?

If my friend turns out to be right, I am going to conclude that the comics in question get money from the government in return for not sending up anything that matters.

Another friend said, "It'll just be a bunch of Chimpy McBushitler jokes, one after another."

Again, if so, too bad. Chimpy McBushitler is NOT responsible for the decline in freedom of expression in Canada. He would be as likely as anyone to tell our nanny monsters to go do something interesting with themselves and not come back to tell the rest of us the details*.

If we can fix our local problems, we can say what we like about Chimpy. Otherwise, well, can we all spell L-A-M-E together?

Most worrying was the person who stated flatly, "They will not have the nerve to actually provoke the Commissions. Most are washed up lefties with a chip on their shoulder who take themselves way too seriously to be really funny."

Ah but friend, consider: Once the government is turning on the screws, comics have a good reason to take themselves seriously. Some of the world's best jokes originate in opposition to oppressive regimes. And the regime never has any comparable jokes to respond with either.

So I am hopeful and encourage all who can make it to pack the place:

COMICS FOR FREEDOM RALLY to be held at The Comedy Bar (945B Bloor West) on Saturday, July 19 in Toronto. Canadian Comic, Guy Earle, is holding a benefit show, celebrating 40 years of stand-up comedy, to raise money for his impending Human Rights Tribunal. Guy is being taken before the Human Rights Tribunal based on his comebacks to a heckler during a Vancouver comedy night back in May 2007.

The show is UNIQUE in its format. 40 comics will hit the stage for one minute of raw, uncensored social commentary. Stand-up is the embodiment of FREE SPEECH and this show personifies our right to speak while we still can. The show, on July 19th, starts at 9pm and tickets will be available before the show and at the door for 20$. Comics are invited to register for the show at www.guyearle.ca. Supporters for the cause are invited to come to the show or donate at the same homepage. Come one, Come all, but REMEMBER there WILL BE offensive language!

Policies I hope will be in place:

1. Talent scouts get priority seating. Forty comics. One show. Hey ...

2. Self-identified government sneaks and snitches get in free but their names and locations will be announced periodically.

3. Persons who suffer from chronic offendedness syndrome will be given special forms to complete, which will be mailed to the grievance agency of their choice, courtesy of the house - unless the washroom runs out of sanitary paper, in which case, ...

(*If the nanny monsters can't get anything else right, they won't get that right either, will they? And we can be absolutely sure, if they are involved, it won't be very funny either.)

Update:

Intellectual freedom in Canada: Charged comedian Guy Earle kindly writes to say,

In response to this post, hoping that the comedians at the laugh-in against the "human rights" commissions have the courage to be funny,

I defend my comedy from the stage. If people think I'm unfunny, shouldn't they see me perform before they pass judgement

I have been part of and seen HUNDREDS of amazing shows form coast to coast where REAL social commentary is being traded like precious stones. I haven't seen more ignorant hatred and unqualified statements than the ones that come from my detractors! they don't even know me or have seen me!

Losers, the whole whack of 'em

They don't know the first thing about comedy and should go f themselves!

But that's just me

Guy, for once it isn't just you. Lots of people are sick of the nanny monsters. Canadians are converging on that!

And in a followup note, Guy adds:

You gotta love people who criticize something they know nothing about. I think that has got to be my favorite ignorant thing.

I ain't no Carrottop. I do my blogging from the stage in real life.

In 3-D reality I express my opinions and I fight for a country that allows me to do it. I invite naysayers and skeptics but please be informed in your slander.

Come to my show, let me prove to you how unfunny I am. And while you are counting your bullets, waiting for me to get on the stage and be lame, take a look around the crowd and the performers... see a love of freedom that can only be felt in a Comedy Club (which doesn't exist in anywhere but the free world), feel proud that we can all be together despite our diversity and differences of opinions... If you feel it for one heartbeat, I have done my job.

Guy, in my view, you are doing a great job, making comedy relevant to our real problems in Canada. I look forward to your show.
All I ask of all the comics is, be both funny and relevant. Guy obviously is - otherwise he would not have been charged - now let's see what the rest of them do ...

By the way, I myself will sooner go to jail than become a snack for the nanny monsters. I am not asking you or anybody to do something I wouldn't do myself.

(Note: The image is from Dave Thomas's Instant Cast.)

See also: Let's LAUGH Canada's "human rights" commissions out of existence!

Open letter to comedian Guy Earle ... the latest to be charged by a Canadian "human rights"commission

Louisiana Academic Freedom Bill: White lab coats to take refuge behind black law robes?

Here’s patent attorney Roddy Bullock on the nerve of the Bayou swamp monsters daring to question Darwin:

Professor Barbara Forrest, an unflagging mouthpiece for Darwinian hegemony, tried to mobilize a "huge network of e-mails" to Gov. Jindal's office to stop the act's supporters from "boldly introducing religion into public education." Alan Leshner of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, or AAAS, proclaimed the act "would unleash an assault against scientific integrity." And, of course, the sky would fall.

Oh, so that’s what all that crap is, over the way! The sky falling. And here I thought someone nearby was doing an under-the-radar home reno .... Silly me, it’s the sky falling after all.

Seriously, Bullock says,

Louisiana may see the next court battle over the teaching of evolution. But making white lab coats subservient to black law robes is the business of scientific cowards – mainstream science has become sadly dependent upon federally protected and subsidized truth. But history shows that science-by-robed-decree, whether by Papal Bull or judicial bunk, is rarely sustainable against contrary evidence. The fine citizens of Louisiana sense this, and simply wish for their children to have science taught fully and honestly in an environment of academic freedom.

Well, I hope academic freedom is reflected in better grades. Louisiana is not a high performing state academically, though it is said to be improving.

(Note: I take assessments like the one linked with a large helping of salt because they often obscure critical information. For example, the parishes of New Orleans, like New York’s inner city schools, may be appallingly bad, but upriver the standards could well be more like those of upstate New York. Let's think before we freak.)

See also:

Governor Bobby Jindal passes Louisiana bill to permit critical thinking about Darwin, and such (But is this a good idea?)

Evolve already, huffingtons ... the alligators are laughing at you

What happens if Darwinism is subjected to natural selection in the Louisiana bayou?

Was the bison’s peculiar chest a design feature ... to help Native North Americans survive?

Some of my friends are creationist biologists, and one, Norbert Smith (now retired), writes to say,

One of the neatest evidences I see of God in Creation is the bison...with an incompletely divided mediastinum. As far as I know, it is the ONLY mammal like this and enabled native Americans to feed their families with one arrow anyplace in the chest...collapsing BOTH lungs. This obviously has NO selective advantage and should have been eliminated by natural selection. God created them special to feed a people. See here.

Norbert was not one of the “official” Expelled, but he was in fact expelled from his university, despite an excellent publication record. For many, the idea that there is no design in nature is a dogma, enforced despite, not because of, evidence.

As I noted in By Design or by Chance?, there is a tradition of Native American creationism (not to be confused with Western monotheistic creationism). It accepts as a commonplace the idea that Native Americans were specially helped to survive for tens of thousands of years, isolated from other human communities.

By the way, there are other reasons why the bison does not fit comfortably with classical Darwinian biology: See, for example, "The Tree of Life and speciation: The odd case of the beefalo" (January 19, 2008) from The Design of Life blog.

(Note: The bison is usually called a “buffalo” in North America, but it is not the “buffalo” of Asia. That’s this animal, courtesy Freefotos.com. The image of the bison is from Parks Canada.)

Animation of life inside the cell as high art?

Here’s another great animation of life inside the body and the cell, from Hybrid Medical Animations.

They enter the realm of high art, achieving a combination of Truth and Beauty ...

- from an unidentified endorsement

The music is well suited too.

I wrote to the friend who drew it to my attention,

Medical animations are quite helpful because many people still believe the “brick theory of the cell.” = that the body is built out of cells as a wall is of bricks, with the brick being less organized than the wall. But the cell is something between a factory and a supercomputer.

The remarkable thing is that the wretched caterpillar I found on a rosebud and threw to the wolf spider was like that. As is the spider itself.

One realizes that Darwin’s explanation for how all this came to be is not even relevant.

Darwin argued that it all happened because the stronger life form survives to breed. That, of course, is doubtless true, but it is not going to give you a supercomputer! – d.

(Note: The video starts a couple of seconds after you access the page.)